by Adam Lazarus
In case one first-round rookie linebacker from a premier college football program wasn’t enough for Levy to mold the Bills defense, Polian brought in another six months later. Cornelius Bennett, the top linebacker taken and second overall pick in that 1987 draft, went to the Indianapolis Colts. Well into the start of the regular season, the two sides could not agree to a contract, and in late October, Bennett was dealt to the Bills as part of a three-way trade that sent all-pro running back Eric Dickerson to the Colts. Bennett signed with Buffalo and was on the field eight days later, sacking John Elway during a 21-14 win over Denver.
A steep price had been paid to acquire Bennett. In addition to parting with running back Greg Bell, the Bills dealt away their first-round selections in the 1988 and 1989 drafts. But Polian was shrewd and knew that first-round picks don’t build dynasties.
“It’s all about the entire process—not just the first round,” Polian would later say at the end of three decades as an NFL general manager.
In April 1988, Polian’s big-picture thinking yielded one of the greatest “steals” in the history of the NFL draft.
Running back Thurman Thomas had been a phenom at Oklahoma State. As a freshman, he rushed for 206 yards and two touchdowns against Kansas State, and topped the 100-yard mark two more times that season. In that year’s Gator Bowl, the eighteen-year-old from Houston posted 155 yards on thirty-two carries, scored a rushing touchdown, and even threw a touchdown pass in the Cowboys’ 21-14 comeback victory over South Carolina. He was named the game’s Most Valuable Player.
Tremendous numbers the next season (three 200-yard games, 1,553 yards rushing) brought on talk of Thomas becoming the first sophomore to win the Heisman Trophy. He finished tied for tenth place in the voting, far behind Bo Jackson of Auburn. An off-season knee injury suffered while playing pickup basketball set back his growth as an upperclassman. Luckily for the Cowboys, head coach Pat Jones had recruited a capable replacement that spring: a grossly undersized player from Wichita, Kansas, named Barry Sanders.
Thomas struggled most of the 1986 season with the sore knee, enabling Sanders to see significant playing time as a freshman. Oklahoma State finished with a very disappointing 6-5 record and no bowl appearance. A year of rest and rehab rejuvenated Thomas for his senior season, and in 1987, the Cowboys finished 10-2, losing only to powerhouses Oklahoma and Nebraska. And although Sanders would go on to post the greatest season ever by a running back in the history of college football a year later (2,638 rushing yards, thirty-nine touchdowns), Thomas relegated him to second-string.
Ten 100-yard rushing games, including an incredible 293-yard performance against Iowa State, again put Thomas in the Heisman conversation. He didn’t garner nearly enough votes to contend, but in his collegiate finale, Thomas proved he belonged among the nation’s elite. On an absurdly snow-covered field in El Paso, Texas, he scored four touchdowns in a Sun Bowl victory over Don Nehlen’s West Virginia Mountaineers. During the 35-33 victory, Thomas touched the ball on more than half of the Cowboys’ offensive plays and accumulated more than half of the team’s total offense.
“He ended his career the way he began it as a freshman—standing on a platform a champion and a most valuable player,” Pat Jones told reporters.
Despite all his college accomplishments, which also included the Senior Bowl MVP, Thomas tumbled on draft day. The once-torn anterior cruciate ligament in his left knee reportedly scared off many teams. As six running backs were selected ahead of him, ESPN cameras filmed Thomas fall asleep on his couch back in Texas.
Spurred on by assistant coach Elijah Pitts—a backup in Vince Lombardi’s Hall of Fame backfield of Jim Taylor and Paul Hornung—Marv Levy and Bill Polian hoped Thomas would fall to them.
“This is the best back in the draft and he is a difference maker,” Polian told owner Ralph Wilson. “But it will be a gamble and it’s your money.”
“Ah hell,” said the sixty-nine-year-old. “Life’s a gamble, go ahead and do it.”
By Week One of his rookie season, Thomas paid out. In the season opener at Rich Stadium, Thomas scored a first-quarter touchdown to give Buffalo a 10-0 lead over Minnesota, a team that lost the previous season’s NFC championship by seven points. In the fourth quarter, the Vikings cut the lead to three points with less than four minutes to play. But a twenty-eight-yard burst from Thomas gave the Bills a first down, and eventually a 13-10 win. He finished the day with eighteen carries for eighty-six yards and a pair of receptions, earning NFL Rookie of the Week honors.
“Thurman is the ideal back you want to have in any offense: very bright, very intelligent,” Bills offensive coordinator Ted Marchibroda said years later. “When he came into preseason camp [as a rookie], he never missed an assignment: he knew all his assignments already. He was the complete back. He could run, he was an outstanding pass receiver, he had foot speed, everything.”
Despite the influx of young talent, Levy had been cautious about his team and the fans expecting too much too soon. Asked in preseason about the possibility of a division title in 1988, Levy responded:
“What would they be hanging their hats on, a 7-8 record [the previous season]? We’ve yet to prove we’re a good team. Last year we proved we’re not a lousy team. There is no one step. You get better little by little. It’s a sophisticated process.”
The process needed less time to take effect than he realized. Following the Thomas-aided win over Minnesota, Buffalo won ten of the next eleven games and clinched the AFC East title. They repeated as division champions the following season. By 1990, a third division title seemed not only a certainty but also a prelude to greater achievements.
“Hopefully . . . Jim [Kelly] can have an All-Pro year and help lead us to the Super Bowl,” Andre Reed said prior to Week One. “With our talent and him as our quarterback, anything else would be falling short of our potential.”
By mid-November, the Bills had only one blemish on their record, an early season loss to the Dolphins in the hot south Florida sun. A victory over the defending AFC Champion Denver Broncos followed a month later by a 42-0 slaughtering of Cleveland—in front of the “Dawg Pound”—solidified Buffalo as the class of the conference. And to show any disbelievers who thought they simply beat up on “second-rate” AFC teams, Buffalo defeated the Eagles 30-23 on the first Sunday of December.
That win, just a week after Philadelphia ended the New York Giants’ perfect 10-0 record, was Buffalo’s most impressive. The defense withstood a twenty-three-point barrage (highlighted by a miraculous ninety-five-yard touchdown pass from quarterback Randall Cunningham) to keep Philadelphia scoreless throughout the game’s final twenty-four minutes.
But offense separated Buffalo from the Eagles that afternoon . . . and separated the Bills from the rest of the NFL.
Coached by Buddy Ryan, architect of the fabled 1985 Chicago Bears defense, the Eagles featured one of the finest defensive lines ever assembled. Future Hall of Famer Reggie White, all-pro defensive tackle Jerome Brown, and pass-rushing specialist Clyde Simmons each relentlessly pressured quarterbacks. Complimented by linebacker Seth Joyner and ball-hawking Eric Allen—arguably the league’s top cornerback—the Eagles accumulated more turnovers and sacks during the previous two seasons than any other team in the NFL.
But not a single Eagle sacked quarterback Jim Kelly in their December 1990 matchup, and Buffalo’s lone turnover didn’t even cost them a possession. (An interception was negated when Thurman Thomas deflected Joyner’s attempt to lateral the ball, and the Bills recovered the fumble.)
Fluke plays such as this one were not necessary for the Bills to ground out yardage, first downs, and points. At 9-2, they were averaging more than twenty-eight points per game, far better than any other team in the league. Prior to the Philadelphia game, Kelly paced the AFC in completion percentage, Thomas led the entire NFL in total yardage, and receiver Andre Reed was in the midst of a second straight all-pro season.
The Bills featured the most balanced, yet supremely e
xplosive attacks in the league. It was also, coincidently, the most unique and unconventional offense seen in decades.[1]
The Bills flirted with a fast-paced approach early in the 1989 season. Trailing by eleven points late in the fourth quarter in the opener against Miami, a pair of touchdowns—orchestrated via the no-huddle—spurred the Bills to victory. Using the offense throughout the second half a week later against the Broncos didn’t produce another comeback and convinced Levy that the no-huddle was not reliable.
“If you think you’re going to win games doing that right out of the box, it will win you one and lose you two,” Levy told reporters after the loss to Denver. “You make a garrison try at it and it looks exciting, but it’s desperation football. It pays off on rare occasions, but not on frequent occasions.”
But Kelly lobbied the coaching staff for more opportunities to perfect the no-huddle. In Week Three, the Bills played Houston in the Astrodome. Running a perpetual “two-minute” offense, Kelly posted five touchdowns and 363 yards passing—the best performance of his short career—as the Bills triumphed in overtime 47-41. (The Bills eventually dubbed this offense the “K-Gun,” a salute to their tight end Keith “Killer” McKeller.)
By their first-round playoff game against Cleveland, the no-huddle was ready for an extended test. The Browns boasted the second-best defense in the conference, and on that day inside Municipal Stadium by Lake Erie, the unit surrendered just forty-nine rushing yards on eighteen carries.
The absence of a ground attack did nothing to slow down the Bills offense. In fact, it worked to their advantage.
“They chose not to feature the running game,” Browns linebacker Clay Matthews said afterward. “Instead they spread us out and confused us. We were out of sync. They created some matchup problems.”
The greatest matchup problem quickly became Cleveland’s entire defense versus Thurman Thomas. In his second NFL season, Thomas emerged as an every-down, multitalented player. He finished the regular season sixth in the NFL in rushing yards, but 669 additional yards on sixty receptions meant the NFL lead in total yards from scrimmage. (He would win that title four consecutive years, a record that still stands.)
So when running lanes did not open up early in the playoff battle against Cleveland, Thomas tied a playoff record, catching thirteen passes for 150 yards and two touchdowns. Every member of the Buffalo passing game benefited from Thomas’ omnipresence. In the first half, receivers Andre Reed and James Lofton each caught long touchdown passes from Kelly, who finished the day with over 400 yards passing.
Spreading out the Browns defense added a new wrinkle to the Bills attack. But the pace of the Bills offense handcuffed their opponent. Buffalo ran virtually every play without a huddle. The unorthodox strategy not only prevented the defense from catching its breath in between plays, it also kept the Browns coaches from making instantaneous substitutions to both the lineup and the defensive strategy.
Across a frozen though snowless field, Kelly repeatedly traded scoring drives with his former Miami Hurricane teammate, Browns quarterback Bernie Kosar. Two minutes, forty-one seconds remained in the fourth quarter when the Bills offense, behind 34-30, took the field. Quick passes from Kelly and the subsequent catch-and-runs by his marvelous receiving corps moved Buffalo into scoring position. With three seconds left, Kelly attempted to squeeze a pass by Clay Matthews into the hands of Thurman Thomas. Although he had struggled all afternoon to cover the elusive second-year back, on the final play Matthews cut in front of Thomas and intercepted the pass at the one-yard line.
“There was an important lesson that we did learn as a result of that loss and of that hectic fourth quarter on the scarred grass of grimy old Cleveland Stadium,” Levy wrote. “As we walked off the field immediately after the game, however, we were all too distraught to reflect upon any educational benefits that could be derived from that unhappy ending. Many months later it would hit us, and when it did take hold, it would be a revelation that helped inspire a decision that would lead to energizing the Buffalo sports scene as never before.”
That revelation resurfaced sometime the following summer, and by opening day of the 1990 season, Levy slowly implemented the K-Gun strategy as the standard offense. Executing the no-huddle during the first series of the season opener against Indianapolis, Kelly ran ten plays (nine-for-nine on pass attempts) that covered seventy-six yards. After that opening drive, the Bills put away their new toy.
“We used it sparingly in the ball games. But the guys liked it,” Marchibroda said. “Then we finally went to it exclusively 100 percent against Philadelphia. We were playing Philadelphia [in 1990] and we thought we needed an element of surprise to beat them, because they had a strong defense. So we went with the no-huddle exclusively in that ball game and as a result we scored twenty-four points in the first quarter. As a result, we got hooked.”[2]
Operating without a huddle meant that the quarterback selected the plays, a facet of the game now regarded as a relic from a previous era. But apart from calling his own plays—a dream for any quarterback—Jim Kelly delighted in the new game plan: using the K-Gun a year earlier against Houston and Cleveland, he combined for nine touchdowns and 768 yards passing. The rest of the offense shared Kelly’s enthusiasm.
“Everybody liked it,” Ted Marchibroda said. “Jim really liked it and he was made for it. But the other thing was that the guys that really liked it were the offensive linemen. Because they could see the defensive linemen tiring. And it gave them a definite edge.”
The additional and now standard use of the no-huddle instantly generated results against the Eagles. Requiring just two plays (and forty-five seconds), the K-Gun posted a lightning-quick touchdown. By the end of the first quarter, Buffalo held a 24-0 lead. And although the Bills needed a pair of second-half field goals by kicker Scott Norwood to solidify a 30-23 win, the K-Gun had arrived.
“It was a miserable day for football,” reported the New York Times, “with a cold and steady rain leaving a light coating of ice on the roads outside Giants Stadium and chilling players and spectators inside.”
The stage for a December 15, 1990, showdown between the 11-2 Giants and 11-2 Bills bothered those spectators much more than it did the men on the field. Standing on the sidelines beneath cold drizzling rain, Marv Levy told an assistant: “I don’t care, whatever, just go play. Whatever it is. You’re supposed to play in whatever kind of weather. That’s the way this game is meant to be played: outside.”
Giants fans discouraged by the weather—more than thirty thousand already-sold tickets went unused—missed a promising start. New York took the opening kickoff and marched downfield. A forty-one-yard run along the sideline by Rodney Hampton, combined with a series of short ground gains neutralized the nasty elements. On the eleventh play of the drive, Simms handed the ball to Ottis Anderson, who plowed into the end zone to cap the seventy-one-yard drive.
Eighty-eight seconds—instantaneous compared to the Giants drawn-out, seven-minute possession—rolled off the clock before the K-Gun evened the score. Largely the result of a forty-eight-yard catch-and-run by Thurman Thomas, Buffalo reached New York’s six-yard line. There, Kelly fired a quick strike over the middle and watched Andre Reed finish off the short touchdown pass. The Bills scored an opening-drive touchdown for the fifth consecutive week.
Buffalo continued exclusive use of their no-huddle offense and less than a minute into the second period, they were in the end zone again. Kelly and Reed hooked up for a thirty-six-yarder to set up Thomas’ tenth rushing touchdown of the season. The Bills had run seventeen plays, amassed 152 yards and a pair of touchdowns, all while running a few minutes off the game clock.
“On both drives, it was obvious the Giants’ defense was confused,” said Kelly. “Especially their linebackers, who didn’t seem to know exactly where to line up and looked awkward in their movement at the snap. After all the scoffing they had done about the no-huddle, I think we caught them off guard with it. It see
med like we were one step ahead of them in everything we did.”
When asked earlier that week about the unconventional and seemingly dynamic K-Gun, the Giants did not express much concern.
“We’re not going to have trouble,” Parcells said. “Huddle or no huddle, the offense has to play the defense. Execution is what counts.”
“I guess a lot of teams aren’t prepared for the no-huddle,” cornerback Mark Collins added. “They think it won’t happen to them. But we’ll be ready. Jim Kelly will be looking at us to see what we’re doing, but we’ll be looking at him.”
Barely a quarter into the game, New York had looked unprepared and overconfident. Despite the three-week slump that detonated a perfect record and sent the team into a tailspin, the Giants still owned the league’s top-ranked defense in both points and yards allowed. More important, they had already proven capable of completely shutting down explosive offenses packed with all-pro talent. New York crushed the Dolphins in September 20-3, limiting Dan Marino to paltry figures: 115 yards passing, two interceptions, and no touchdowns. Ten weeks later, they held Joe Montana to 152 yards on twenty-nine pass attempts, completely shut down the 49ers’ running game, and forced nine punts.
Two seemingly effortless touchdowns by Buffalo now overshadowed those previous achievements, and defensive coordinator Bill Belichick angrily corralled his unit for discussion. Crouching along the sideline with a dry-erase board against his knee, Belichick shouted out reminders and adjustments to the defense. Fortunately, Belichick and the players processing his instructions on a nearby bench had plenty of time: Phil Simms was in the middle of constructing another trademark time-consuming scoring drive.
The defense retook the field and, behind 14-10, received a lucky break.
At his own twenty-one-yard line, Bills quarterback Jim Kelly unloaded a short pass to Andre Reed, who caught the ball, gained a few yards, and set up an important third and short. Kelly stayed upright long enough to dump the pass off to Reed, thanks to solid protection from his offensive line.
